Sunday, May 15, 2011

More Powerful than Hatred: A Note

Not so shiny days in Iran! It is too sad that the Iranian jails are full of prisoners of conscience and political prisoners. Add to it the attempts to put those prisoners under harsher and harsher conditions by sending them on exile across more horrifying prisons. A few days ago, several female political
prisoners and prisoners of conscience formerly held in Gohardasht prison were transferred
to Qarchak prison outside Tehran and are now spending their sentences under inhuman circumstances that make Qarchak even more dangerous
than Gohardasht prison. Although several human rights groups and other
governmental or non-governmental organizations have condemned the action, the
Iranian government has not done much to improve their situation. But this does
not mean that disappointment should prevail the efforts to defend their rights.
There are lessons of hope and determination to be learned from those powerful
souls whose constructive resilience in prison proves to be inspiring elsewhere.

The story starts when the officials of Gohardasht Prison, home to
several prisoners of conscience including the Iranian Baha’i leadership group,
transferred Mahvash Sabet and Fariba Kamalabadi, the two female members of that
group, to a more insecure and insanitary section of the same prison. When Mrs
Kamalabadi informed her family of this transference, she noted that she would
call her family each day; in case the family did not receive a phone call from
her some day, it would be an alert to them meaning anything - including their
death possibly.

On such occasions, informing the public - through the media - is maybe
the only thing that can be done to influence a change. Whether it was for the
political situation in the country or simply due to ignorance, no press release
came out about that act of transference for three long days – after which the first public news I received was that of the Baha’i World News Service.

During these three days, I would pray for their lives, thinking about
the last couple of years and what had went on throughout. There is this
inspiring song by Josh Groban that said “…Per te vivrò. L'amore vincerà…” The
supernal quality of the song can make you contemplative at any given time, let
alone under these circumstances, when you see people who do not recant their
faith and their love, and dedicate themselves to the happiness of all around
them, including not only their fellow inmates, but also people like me - through
their energetic voice on the phone, the voice that you cannot hear much but
that frequently echoes in your mind.

A few weeks later, I received an email that was about a convicted
criminal who had been allegedly ordered to kill the two - an informal way of getting
rid of prisoners who are not legally found guilty, but whose presence some
authorities would like absented. Presumably the criminal had gone to their cell
one day, telling them what she had been ordered to, but that she was not going
to kill them because she and other prisoners had learned they were good people.

The transforming power of love, which overcomes enmity and goes beyond
it: “When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace.
A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.”
(Emphasis Added. Paris Talks: Addresses given by Abdu’l’Baha in Paris in
1911-1912 (London: Baha’i publishing trust, 1995),p.19)

The validity of this comparison between the power of love/unity and
hatred/division is already proved to be true in the natural world. Compare the nuclear
energy produced in a fission reaction – an atomic reaction with a nucleus splitting
into parts- with that released in fusion -when several nuclei unite into one. The
energy produced during fusion is so much that it still challenges physicists
who want to tame and control the reaction in a reactor!

Controlling the power of love and unity is, I think, even more
complicated in the world of human beings. God willing, nobody should ever face such
displays of hatred as evidenced in this corner of the globe, yet the experience
in Gohardasht can contribute to our understanding of the world in general. Their
attitude is well the subject of a case study, introducing a powerful force into
our social affairs, one at work even in a mysterious complicated prison
community, the force of love that could transform the hearts of even the most
convicted criminals and could diminish the flare of enmity there.

Mrs Sabet herself has talked about this force, recounting part of their experience
in Gohardasht in one of her poems, an English translation of which can be found here. The poem is already available in a
Farsi human rights website named Agahee. Please
share this translation with everybody who is interested in the well-being of
humankind – so that they may raise the call in support of these women and the
many other innocent people kept in Iranian prisons and that they may find the
attitude put forward here inspiring in their efforts towards the betterment of
the world.